mikwut wrote:Hi DJ,Even if a person believes that an angel is an authoritative source to attest that the Book of Mormon is true, the witness to that fact is the angel. One man, or three men, or six thousand men repeating what the angel said does not mean you have one, or three, or six thousand additional witnesses to the underlying claim (that the Book of Mormon is true).
That's correct. I agree. But it also doesn't mean you have irrelevant evidence regarding the claim.
If something is irrelevant, then it is by definition not evidence, because it does not tend to prove or disprove a given claim. That is how it is in life, not just in court, notwithstanding your assumption that I am suggesting the Rules of Evidence are the standard for the OP. But what you're really saying is that Moroni's Promise is not reliable. In this thread, we're assuming it is.
I cannot make myself a witness to a claim or an event by repeating a story that someone else told me.
Right. Your a second hand witness/messenger (as you like) to it. History is replete with accepting second hand sources if reliable. Our everyday lives are also. One of the issues you raised is relevancy. Relevancy can be obtained from second hand testimony or source. Relevancy isn't limited to academic verification. Differentiating what kind of evidence the 3 witnesses testimony is is different from calling it irrelevant altogether.
History is not replete with verifying claims of fact by Moroni's Promise. Moroni's Promise is what makes the Three Witnesses irrelevant, if you are assuming that it works.
What is the basis for a believing Mormon accepting that an angel sent from Elohim really did tell these three people that the Book of Mormon is true, and the angel was not lying, a demon, a hallucination, a delusion, a made-up story, a formless "impression" as David Whitmer sometimes said, or anything other than a real angel who was stating objective truth?
Credibility, the cross corroboration of the witnesses and whatever system variables we have individually collectively and systematically set up as control become the basis for acceptance. But there is no secular evidential Bible or religious one that says second hand testimony from angels is irrelevant. We all have access to what we weigh toward credibility and realism based on our cognitive faculties and experience.
Credibility only matters when something is relevant to a given claim. If God personally revealed to me, per Moroni 10, that the Book of Mormon is true, I do not need to evaluate anyone's credibility, and I don't need three of Joseph Smith's associates to vouch for God.
The basis is that God has confirmed to you that the event really happened
Correct, but you assume too much by that fact. The witness of the spirit still requires trust in that cognitive faculty or perception (I don't understand Mormons as teaching it is certainty, otherwise of what significance would the second witness doctrine have?).
The underlined point is the entire damn point of this thread.
Just like we have to trust our other faculties. Cross checking a spiritual confirmation with second hand testimony isn't an improper exercise of satisfying one's belief forming about a certain fact. Historians do it all the time.
Do historians receive personal revelation all the time? Do historians routinely pray with a sincere heart to know that the Assyrians existed, for example?
In the justice system we make exceptions to hearsay that are similar (not the exact same). The one on the top of my head is young children who testify about sexual abuse. The mother, teacher, or forensic interviewer that the child reported to are often found as exceptions to the hearsay rule if certain criteria of reliability are satisfied and we then present to a jury who can accept the mother, teacher or forensic interviewer that reports second hand what the child said. It wouldn't be satisfying in finding the truth to say over and over that the child is the witness the mother or the forensic interviewer are irrelevant and just messengers. It wouldn't be satisfying to say the witness is the child. Instead we weigh the credibility and reliability of the person telling us what they were told. Their testimony is valuable at getting to the truth of the matter.
Of course it's the child that the trier of fact is ultimately believing. The reliability of the child is one of the factors the court has to consider when deciding whether to admit hearsay statements in these cases. That's required by the Sixth Amendment. A trial court has to find that "the hearsay statement 'falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception,'" or proffered hearsay statement is "supported by 'a showing of particularized guarantees of trustworthiness.'" Idaho v. Wright, 497 U.S. 805 (1990). And the way you counter that is by challenging the accuracy of the witness reporting the hearsay, and also by challenging children's perceptions and recollections, including whether they have been coached.
This is also irrelevant, because it is not analogous to the Three Witnesses. In instances where hearsay is allowed in child sex abuse cases, it is for policy reasons. It's to protect the child from the trauma of testifying in court. It's not because the child is in reality "unavailable" as a declarant. Moroni 10 says that God IS available as a declarant.
The basis is that God has confirmed to you that the event really happened. There is no other methodology posited by believing Mormons to distinguish the claims of the Three Witnesses from the claims of UFO abductees, people who have seen Bigfoot, people who have talked to the Virgin Mary, etc.
There is no other methodology posited by believers of children that have reported abuse to distinguish the claims of UFO abductees, people who have seen Bigfoot, people who have talked to the Virgin Mary etc...
You've never been involved in a child sex abuse case if you're seriously asserting that. Psychologists and child sex abuse investigators can testify as experts regarding behaviors that are consistent with a child being the victim of sex abuse. E.g., http://law.justia.com/cases/utah/suprem ... loose.html.
This also has nothing to do with the Three Witnesses and Moroni's Promise.
But if God is the source of confirming the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and God is the source of confirming that the Three Witnesses really did see an angel, then the Three Witnesses are superfluous middlemen.
Middlemen yes. Superfluous is the issue we are debating. I simply don't see why it is superfluous anymore than the myriad of history I believe happened that comes from middlemen or the many child molesters that are in jail because of middlemen.
You appear to be defending your religious beliefs, not those of the LDS Church in the specific context of the Three Witnesses. Moroni's Promise is purported to be personal revelation from God; thus, "I know, with every fiber of my being/beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Church is true," "I bear you my solemn witness that the Church is true," etc. And I'm not aware of any child molesters who were convicted on the basis of a spiritual witness.
God is the source of the knowledge communicated to them, and God is the source of confirmation that their claimed experiences really happened.
So what. A mother has intuition that something is wrong with their child. The child is the source of the knowledge that communicates to a forensic interviewer abuse occurred, and the child is the source of the confirmation that the claimed experience of intuition really happened and was real. I accept the results of a forensic interview and a mother's intuition that led to it if the interview is reliable.
mikwut
That's not analogous to the Three Witnesses, either. A forensic interview has to have training and experience to qualify him or her as an expert. There is no process comparable to forensic analysis that is going on with using Moroni's Promise to evaluate the testimony of the Three Witnesses. It is using your religious faith to evaluate someone else's religious faith.
